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A boat transporting migrants arrives in the port of Messina after a rescue operation at sea on April 18, 2015 in Sicily. ─ AFP

ROME/PALERMO: As many as 700 people are feared dead after a boat carrying migrants capsized off the Libyan coast overnight, a United Nations official said on Sunday.

Antonino Irato, a senior official from the Italian border police told television station RaiNews24 that 28 people were rescued in the incident, and 24 bodies had been recovered, adding that the boat had capsized just off Libyan waters, south of the southern Italian island of Lampedusa.

If confirmed, the death toll would bring the total number of dead since the beginning of the year to more than 1,500.

The boat is believed to have capsized when the migrants shifted to one side of the overcrowded vessel as a merchant ship approached.

“The first details came from one of the survivors who spoke English and who said that at least 700 people, if not more, were on board. The boat capsized because people moved to one side when another vessel that they hoped would rescue them approached,” said Carlotta Sami, a spokeswoman for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugee.

Italian officials said navy and coast guard vessels, as well as merchant ships in the area and a Maltese patrol boat, were involved in the search and rescue operation, which was being coordinated by the Italian coast guard in Rome.

The new deaths fuelled calls for a stronger response from Europe to the increasingly deadly decades-long migrant crisis playing out in the Mediterranean.

“A tragedy is unfolding in the Mediterranean, and if the EU and the world continue to close their eyes, it will be judged in the harshest terms as it was judged in the past when it closed its eyes to genocides when the comfortable did nothing,” Maltese Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said.

“They are literally trying to find people alive among the dead floating in the water,” he added.

There was still no decision on where the survivors and the bodies that had been recovered would be taken.

Just last week, 400 people were presumed drowned when another boat capsized.

“How can we remain insensible when we're witnessing entire populations dying at a time when modern means of communications allow us to be aware of everything?” Renzi said at a political event in Mantua.

On his way back to Rome, where he was expected to give a news conference later, Renzi spoke by telephone to French President Francois Hollande.

The leader of the anti-immigrant Northern League party, Matteo Salvini, who has made migration one of the centrepieces of his political agenda, called for a an immediate naval blockade of the coast of Libya.

The lawless state of Libya, following the toppling of former leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, has left criminal gangs of migrant smugglers a free hand to send a stream of boats carrying desperate migrants from Africa and the Middle East.

Around 20,000 migrants have reached the Italian coast this year, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) estimates. That is fewer than in the first four months of last year, but the number of deaths has risen almost nine-fold.

In 2013, the previous government initiated the search-and-rescue operation “Mare Nostrum” or “Our Sea” after hundreds drowned in an incident off the coast of Lampedusa.

The operation was cancelled last year, because of the cost and because some politicians said it encouraged migrants to depart by raising their hopes of being rescued.

That made way for the European Union's border control mission, Triton. However Triton, which has a much smaller budget and narrower remit, has been criticised by humanitarian groups and Italy as inadequate to tackle the scale of the problem.

On Saturday, Pope Francis joined Italy in pressing the European Union to do more to help the country cope with the soaring numbers of arrivals, which include more than 10,000 in the week ending Saturday.

Italy says it will continue rescuing migrants but demands that the EU increase assistance to shelter and rescue them.

Italy says the EU's border control agency, Frontex, must take a greater role in coordinating rescue operations.

Frontex technically is a border patrol operation, not responsible for search and rescue efforts. Because most migrants want to reach family or other members of their community in northern Europe, Italian governments have pushed for those countries to do more, particularly by taking in the migrants while their requests for asylum or refugee status are examined.

The EU's commissioner for migration, Dmitris Avramopoulos, says a new policy will be presented in May. He also has called for other EU members to provide more aid to Italy.

On DawnNews

Comments (20) Closed

Kamal Pasha.

Apr 19, 2015 04:40pm

UN does not do anything against the countries from where these people try to escape to the West. These counties are either involved in wars/conflicts or the governments are corrupt. These countries are members of UN. Can't UN take any action against these government?

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PakCanuck

Apr 19, 2015 04:46pm

Tragic. Europe needs to do more to prevent these tragedies

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Ali (CA)

Apr 19, 2015 06:57pm

You fix one problem, it creates 10 more. Food for thought

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allaisa

Apr 19, 2015 07:01pm

What is strange is these socalled immigrants, all Muslims, try to reach Christian countries for new life but never any one of the 57 Islamic countries. One wonders why? Saudi Arabia instead of bombing the hapless Yemenis and fleecing the Haj pilgrims should do something for these poor immigrants. But do they care?

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Tom

Apr 19, 2015 08:04pm

@Kamal Pasha.
To impose the will of the UN, these countries would have to be invaded and in effect colonised, or stringent and damaging economic sanctions applied over many years. The UN is a talking shop. If a country is suffering under a corrupt and cruel regime that can't be removed by democratic means, it's largely up to the citizens of that country to organize a coup d'etat.

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CYRUS

Apr 19, 2015 08:43pm

They are overloading all these boats. All of them because the smugglers are greedy and the refugees are ignorant.
The people getting on them don't see they are about to commit suicide. They have never heard the phrase Water Safety in their lives. The penalty for boarding these boats can easily be death.

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CYRUS

Apr 19, 2015 08:44pm

@PakCanuck

You pays your money and you takes your chances.

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CYRUS

Apr 19, 2015 09:04pm

@Kamal Pasha.

The only thing the UN or anyone can do is warn these people.

They need to find a safer way to escape the Middle East. ( A) Save your money. (B) Find a safer way or a safer destination.
Why Europe? Why not Brazil? Brazil is where I would take my family. The UN might be able to build them a huge refugee city. That is what the United Nations does.
Gaza was a UN refugee camp. Egypt never supported the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.

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Anaon

Apr 19, 2015 09:34pm

What a human tragedy. These people are nowhere to go .Their countries were destroyed in pretext of democracy and tyranny should be blamed for the tragedy.

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deva

Apr 19, 2015 10:00pm

@Kamal Pasha. most of these type of country are islamic and its hard truth. They wants to follow hardliner interpretation of sharia

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samdani

Apr 19, 2015 10:14pm

Try to be gentle and result oriented

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Anni

Apr 19, 2015 11:36pm

Funny... People want Western countries to take action in other countries.. Hypocrisy is lost to them...

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Sajid Malik

Apr 19, 2015 11:53pm

@PakCanuck .... Why Europe alone? How about rich gulf states. How about Saudi Arab? Much of the countries will remain war zones. Europe had done more than enough and now is paying heavily.

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Jaikumar Radhakrishnan

Apr 20, 2015 12:40am

Please do correct the title. "Upto" is not one word; it should be replaced by "up to". (This is a common mistake in India.)

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Haider Rehman

Apr 20, 2015 12:58am

A man is throwing hundreds of babies into a river. Do you swim to save the babies or stop the man from throwing the babies into the river?

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Haider Rehman

Apr 20, 2015 12:58am

@Kamal Pasha.
UN does not have enough power to my knowledge.

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Amana

Apr 20, 2015 01:19am

Sad news. But even sadder event was when Christians on board were pushed over by Muslims to drown to death a few days back.

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atif

Apr 20, 2015 01:42am

sad; RIP

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atif

Apr 20, 2015 01:44am

sad. ppl wanting a better life have been left lifeless. may they find solace in the world hereafter, this one sucks

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Sarah Mathew

Apr 20, 2015 06:18am

they can fire thousands of hellfire missiles which cost more than 10,000 USD on Public in Yemen Libya Iraq and many poor countries, They can fire 100, 000 USD a piece of Toma Hawk missiles to Afghanistan just for nothing but for a fake illusion of Bin Laden. They can pound millions of dollars for the creation of ISis to kill Syrians and Bahrainis but they can not spend a few thousand dollars for the betterment of humanity. It cost ten times to Kill Humans than to Save them, but their agenda is different that is why they all are silent upon these huge losses of humanity.